"New York blocks were not divinely ordained," Owen replied. "It occurred to the citizens at last they could bisect those 200 x 800-foot oblongs, and they did. Wide, tree-shaded, pleasant ways run between the old avenues, and the blocks remaining are practically squares."
"You noticed the irregular border of grass and shrubbery as we came up, didn't you, Uncle?" asked Jerrold. "We forgot to speak about it, because we are used to it."
I did recall now that our ride had been not through monotonous, stone-faced, right-angled ravines, but along the pleasant fronts of gracious varying buildings, whose skyline was a pleasure and street line bordered greenly.
"You didn't live here and don't remember, maybe," Owen remarked, "but the regular thing uptown was one of those lean, long blocks, flat-faced and solid, built to the sidewalk's edge. If it was a line of private houses they were bordered with gloomy little stone-paved areas, and ornamented with ash-cans and garbage pails. If the avenue end was faced with tall apartments, their lower margin was infested with a row of little shops—meat, fish, vegetable, fruit—with all their litter and refuse and flies, and constant traffic. Now a residence block is a thing of beauty on all sides. The really necessary shops are maintained, but planned for in the building, and made beautiful. Those fly-tainted meat markets no longer exist."
"I will talk!" said Hallie, so plaintively that we all laughed and let her.
"That first one I was telling you about was very charming and attractive. There were arrangements on the top floor for nurseries and child gardens; and the roof was for children all day; evenings the grown-ups had it. Great care was taken by the management in letting this part to the best professionals in child culture.
"There were big rooms, too, for meetings and parties; places for billiards and bowling and swimming—it was planned for real human enjoyment, like a summer hotel."
"But I thought you said this place was for women," I incautiously ventured.
"Oh, Uncle John! And has it never occurred to you that women like to amuse themselves? Or that professional women have men relatives and men friends? There were plenty of men in the building, and plenty more to visit it. They were shown how nice it was, you see. But the chief card was the food and service. This company engaged, at high wages, first-class houseworkers, and the residents paid for them by the hour; and they had a food service which was beyond the dreams of—of—homes, or boarding houses."
"Your professional women must have been millionaires," I mildly suggested.